The Marvel Cinematic Universe is currently king of the mountain when it comes to telling interconnecting stories across multiple movies, but Warner Bros.’ DC Extended Universe and Universal’s Dark Universe are looking to build their own ongoing cinematic universes. Valiant Entertainment, a company looking to use their comic books as the basis for a cinematic universe of their own, has been waiting on the sidelines since 2012, and it seems like they’re finally inching closer to joining the fray with a film based on Shadowman.

Reginald Hudlin, a veteran director and producer, has been hired to take the reins on this one, and he’ll team with an acclaimed showrunner to rewrite the script.Read More »

Before Marvel Studios was part of Disney, Marvel established a method of developing and packaging its own films in order to retain some control over the characters. Now Valiant Entertainment seems to be trying to do the same thing, by scoring a huge amount of investment capital from DMG Entertainment to develop a Valiant comics movie universe.

DMG has put eight figures worth of funding into Valiant “to further its efforts in international publishing, film, television, licensing and beyond.” But that’s not all. The press release announcing the deal also trumpets an additional nine-figure investment towards development of film and TV projects featuring Valiant characters such as Bloodshot, Shadowman, and Archer & Armstrong. The goal of the partnership between Valiant and DMG is significant, and they’re not hiding it, as the announcement proclaims the creation of the “largest independent superhero universe.”

Universal isn’t giving up on its long-gestating Creature From the Black Lagoon remake. The project’s been kicking around in one form or another since the early ’80s, but has been pretty quiet the past few years. Now the studio’s starting fresh with writer Dave Kajganich. The scribe is no stranger to horror remakes. He was behind The Invasion, a 2007 remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In addition, he’s working on new versions of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, It, and The Stand.

Kajganich will be starting from scratch on Black Lagoon, rather than rewriting any of the earlier drafts. Contrary to previous reports that Carl Erik Rinsch was in talks to direct, Black Lagoon has no director at this time. [THR]